


hook, line, and sinker

by fayre



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: (you— you're fucking flirting!), Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, angst & fluff, guan shan begrudgingly begins to understand he tian, he tian gets the love and affection he deserves, post-chapter drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayre/pseuds/fayre
Summary: “So everything that happened,” Guan Shan says, trying and failing to keep a steady tone, “The shopping, the barbeque — everything was just because you didn’t want to go home alone? That's pretty damn convoluted if you ask me.”He Tian huffs, amused. “Not exactly. I had nothing planned; no expectations. I just wanted to be with you.”a post-chapter 292 drabble (the day after the BBQ/sleepover at the He family estate.)





	hook, line, and sinker

They barely made it to school on time.

It was a scramble of limbs and schoolbags as the boys clambered out of the backseat with more pushing and shoving than anything else, and as Qiu drove off with a scowl and a fresh headache, they made it through the front doors just as the warning bell rang.

It was a speedy dispersal. Jian Yi’s chirps of, “See ya!” echoed in the halls as they each went their separate ways to their respective classrooms, their shirts wrinkled and hair slightly mussed, tired and stiff but somehow kept upright with a deeply rooted feeling of satisfaction from the night before, though they’d never admit it out loud.

Guan Shan hadn’t slept well. He’d never been one who could fall asleep comfortably on couches, and last night was no exception. Thankfully it wasn’t a fitful sleep; he hadn’t been tossing and turning like he’d expected. But he woke up feeling as though he’d never went to sleep to begin with, and now the consequences are dire. There’s a crook in his neck and a soreness in his spine, and as he slouches over his desk with his pencil tapping impatiently on his thigh, he can only wonder how he was roped into an impromptu slumber party at the _He estate_ of all places. How he was so thoughtlessly guided into the lion’s den without taking the rightful precautions.

It’s because those idiots had my bag, he tells himself. It’s because he couldn’t go _back_ to school after they’d already skipped half the day and pretend nothing had happened, he tells himself. It’s because he has an English II project due at third period and his thumb drive is in his backpack’s front pocket and technically he isn’t assigned to present today but anything could happen and it’s still the _matter of the fact—_

Guan Shan rubs at an eye, tired.

He knows why he went. It’s unbearable, but true. He knows why He Tian hadn’t needed to grasp his wrist as tightly as usual as he led him to the taxi, ducked inside after him and read off the address to the driver. And most of it, Guan Shan knows, can be summed up to the way he hadn’t been able to properly stare out the window and pretend He Tian didn’t exist; pretend that He Tian’s presence didn’t fire synapses in his head every time he made the smallest movement or gave him a sweeping look like he was trying to map out Guan Shan’s body, expressions, emotions.

Instead, Guan Shan spent most of the car ride looking at He Tian from the corner of his eye. Studying the small upturn of He Tian’s lips; the lightness in his gray eyes that could single-handedly explain how he got away with everything and anything with a single, well-executed look. Except this time his expression wasn’t forced. It wasn’t threaded with deceit. It was a _pleasure_ that Guan Shan had never seen on him before — never thought he _would_ see on him.

_All because of a stupid pair of earrings?_ Guan Shan had thought bitterly, forcing himself to turn and watch the trees flash by in blurs of green and yellow. _Idiot._

But he couldn’t bring himself to ruin it — that pleasure. That content.

And Guan Shan hadn’t stopped to wonder why he didn’t. He could’ve said no. He had every _right_ to say no. He has no responsibility to upkeep He Tian’s fragile emotions like some kind of psychological maid. He owes He Tian nothing of the sort. And yet—

_Come on, then. Stroke my hair._

Why did he sound so—

And this morning, next to the couch—

“Guan Shan.”

He snaps to attention. Looking up, Guan Shan finds the class looking back at him. At the head of the room, his teacher purses her lips.

“Stop with that incessant tapping. It’s distracting.”

Guan Shan puts down his pencil from where he’d progressed to drumming it anxiously on the edge of his desk. One by one, the class turns back to the chalkboard. The teacher clears her throat.

And the lesson resumes.

* * *

None of them have the energy to join the basketball game at lunch. Instead, Zheng Xi points out an open spot near the corner of the courtyard, and the other three boys feel too subdued to argue it. It’s farther from where they normally sit — quieter, even — with only a single tree providing shelter from the midday sun. But as Jian Yi plops into a patch of sunlight, stretched out on his back in the grass like a lazy cat, and Zheng Xi sits next to him and pulls out a notebook, Guan Shan suddenly knows why they’re so much farther from everyone else today.

“Why didn’t you do it last night?” Guan Shan asks.

Pulling out a calculator, Zheng Xi shoots him a look.

“Yeah, because I really had time to do algebra while I was cleaning eggplant out of my hair.”

Guan Shan frowns. “It was just a question.”

“I’m tired.”

“We all are.”

With that, Guan Shan walks a few feet away, dropping his bag and settling down against the tree trunk with an exhale. He’s unsurprised to find He Tian following, long legs stretching out as he sits beside him on the grass.

There’s a haze in the air, and the distant sounds of the bouncing basketball and yelling voices are muffled. Guan Shan watches Jian Yi doze off as Zheng Xi scribbles away. With the usual antics of the group — or rather, of He Tian and Jian Yi — lost to sleepiness, Guan Shan doesn’t know what to do with this rare and weird down moment. His fingers pull at the grass subconsciously, dirt collecting under his nails, and after a while Guan Shan turns to look at He Tian.

The latter hasn’t moved; not even a twitch. Not a word. He Tian’s eyes are downcast, half-lidded, unreadable. He stares at something unseen in the grass between his knees, lost in thought and unfocused, and it’s only when many silent moments pass does something uneasy begin to linger in Guan Shan’s chest because he’s seen He Tian tired before, and tired doesn’t look like this.

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks, then holds back a grimace. His voice was quieter and rougher than he intended. The slow roll of He Tian’s eyes from the ground to his face only affirms that he heard it, too.

“I’m not hungry.” His gaze drops down to Guan Shan’s backpack at their feet, seemingly searching for something that isn’t there. “What about you?”

Guan Shan scowls. “I couldn’t exactly find time to pack a lunch yesterday.”

He Tian digests that. Says, “You can go buy—”

“No. It’s fine.”

“You could’ve asked one of the housemaids. They would have made something quick for you to take.”

“Sure. Because ordering around personal maids is right up my alley, huh?”

He Tian only looks at him, empty. Then looks away. Back at the grass.

And, unfathomably, there’s a part of Guan Shan that sinks a little. And he frowns, because he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what was _wrong_ with what he said because it’s true and they both know it. He doesn’t know why their normal way of talking suddenly feels so… wrong.

But he’s still looking at He Tian — shamelessly — but He Tian doesn’t even seem to notice. And Guan Shan thinks he sees two images flashing, overlapping, like a poor game of spot-the-difference, except the only differences are He Tian’s change of clothes and the state of his hair and the absence of that premature smile on his lips that he’d had in the jewelry store. In the taxi. In his backyard. Last night, pressed up against Guan Shan’s na—

“Something you want to say, Little Mo?”

And Guan Shan doesn’t think about commenting on the subtle sharpness behind He Tian’s words — the dark, underlying tone of which He Tian had used back when they first met, back when it was fear and power and not much else between them — because before any of that registers, Guan Shan asks, “Where did you go?”

There’s a pause, and then He Tian gives him a look. “What?”

“This morning. We were already running late and you suddenly decided to disappear to fuck-all and no one could find you—”

_And then you came back in a weird — weirder — mood._

The corner of He Tian’s mouth twitches, then lifts. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t miss me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Were you scared by yourself, Little Mo? Scared something happened to me?”

“I’m being fuckin’ serious, asshole.”

He Tian huffs. “What does it matter? It’s my family’s property, after all.”

“So do you normally just... wander the damn _mountain_ in your free time?”

“It’s a refreshing hike.” He Tian winks. Its artificiality makes Guan Shan’s stomach churn. “I promise I was safe.”

Guan Shan’s tongue clicks, and he looks away with a scowl. “You’re too fuckin’ impossible sometimes.”

He Tian smirks, sickening. “You know, if you were worried about me, you should swallow that pride of yours and say it straight up—“

_“You know,_ at this point I’m startin’ to think you _wanted_ me to be ‘worried’,” Guan Shan hisses. “Is that it? Really fuckin’ fishing for it today, aren’t you?”

Irate, he adds in a spit: “A little _desperate_ for attention _,_ He Tian?”

It’s like a papercut on his palm. It only stings, slightly, but in the worst way possible. And Guan Shan only knows it stings because he sees it in the way He Tian’s face drops, half-assed smirk replaced with something more stoic. And suddenly it’s like seeing his reflection in a block of ice, dangerous to the touch. Unsettling.

Guan Shan swallows thickly, determined to maintain his own glower. To gain ground while He Tian finally has his ears open to hear something other than what he wants to hear.

But what makes Guan Shan think _he’s_ the one who can tell He Tian what he _needs_ to hear?

“There,” Guan Shan says, low, jaw tight. “That’s better. That fake ass smile is a waste of my time. Both of our times.”

Across the courtyard, there’s a clatter of a ball on a hoop and a chorus of cheers. A gentle wind whisks by and Zheng Xi’s notebook pages flutter with it. Jian Yi rolls onto his side in his sleep, curling up. The world is serene, submissive to the afternoon hours, but the look in He Tian’s eyes is much less so.

And there’s a depth to He Tian, Guan Shan has learned. There’s a cascade of stairways, some leading to swift exits and others to false rooms filled with counterfeited visuals. And there’s some, rarely, that keep going, and going, and going. Impossibly darker as you descend, but deceivingly so. Because Guan Shan has learned that if you keep one hand on the railing and put one foot in front of the other, blind, you’re bound to end up somewhere.

What you’ll end up finding is the only mystery about it.

“Yesterday,” Guan Shan starts, voice lowered, because even as he clicks away at his calculator with his back halfway facing them doesn’t mean Zheng Xi can’t hear them. “A lot… happened. I know. And it was all unplanned, and when I came to you during lunch I didn’t know we’d fuckin’ _leave_ right _then_ and skip and— everything. With the earrings, I don’t even know what I was… Anyway, that’s besides the fucking point. And don’t get me wrong: I still don’t know a damn thing about you. You make no fucking sense. But at the jewelry store, and during dinner, you were— different. Still fuckin’ annoying as hell but in a _different_ way—” _Happy._ “—but this morning, you... And last night, did you sleep on the…?”

He stops himself. His sentences are broken; mismatched puzzle pieces trying to mash themselves together. The words drizzled out of him like melted caramel, sticky and messy and warped in ways he hadn’t intended to cause.

And there’s a burning feeling creeping up the back of his neck, slow but sure, and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’d been more _confused_ than angry when he woke up to an extra cot beside the couch, the lingering indent of a body moulded into the sheets and mattress. That he had woken up this morning on his own accord, naturally, rather than an unwanted arm snaking around his waist in the dark, or a devious hand climbing up the back of his shirt, or the suffocating weight of He Tian pinning him down just because he could and because Guan Shan was too vulnerable to stop him. That He Tian had kept his space — maintained their boundaries — and wasn’t even there to tease him about it in the morning. That everything had already been strange enough as it was, but the way that He Tian’s jaw was tensed when he finally came to the car before the tension was swept away by a plastic smile and a sudden need for affection that he knew Guan Shan wouldn’t give, but he asked for it — _asked for it_ — anyway was stranger.

Guan Shan doesn’t know how to explain it without sounding paranoid or, worse, so inexplicably _attentive_ to He Tian.

But He Tian only watches him, silent, leaving no room for Guan Shan to think he can walk away from this without finishing what he started. And Guan Shan begins to wonder if He Tian already knows what he’s trying to say. He wonders if he himself is starting to hope for that to become the case: the point in which He Tian understands him so thoroughly, so carefully, that he can stitch together the jumble of thoughts that Guan Shan can’t quite understand himself and make meaning of it. He wonders if that would make things easier or harder between them and, ultimately, what that would even _mean._

But that’s not the case. At least, he doesn’t think so. His only saving grace is the new, subtle shift in He Tian’s eyes; the gradual melting of an iceberg, raising water level like the lump in Guan Shan’s throat. And yet, somehow, Guan Shan is starting to think he should’ve kept his mouth shut. Should’ve left He Tian’s bait alone, because the hook digs deep like the weighted silence between them, waiting to be filled.

_Are you flirting?_

Guan Shan swallows, and his throat clicks dryly.

“I… I feel like you _want_ something from me and...” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I can give it to you.”

It comes out different than he had intended. Or perhaps, maybe, it didn’t. Maybe it’s exactly what Guan Shan meant. Maybe it’s exactly what he’s needed to say all along.

Maybe it’s what He Tian needs to hear.

_We don’t work well together. You should stop before someone gets hurt._

He Tian’s eyes flicker over his face, unreadable. And Guan Shan can’t look away. Feels, almost, as if it’d be wrong if he did. As if he’d miss something vital if he dared to create that distance.

“You say that,” He Tian says, quiet, his voice a reverberation in the breeze, “but is it because you don’t want to, or because you think you’re not capable of it?”

Guan Shan studies him. Knows the obvious answer.

_I don’t want to_.

But then he searches for the words, for a way to put that _obvious answer_ into something sensible enough to form on his tongue — but stumbles and trips and fails. And it’s as if He Tian is piercing straight through him, opening a hole that can’t be covered up, and Guan Shan is gushing. Bleeding truth in his absence of words; staining his chest, his hands, his legs. And he watches it leak out, lets it comb through his fingers, his mind, confused. Dazed. Because it’s not what he thought — what he thought he knew. It’s not the _obvious answer_ he thought he had perfected in his mind.

If blood is blue in your veins, why is it red when someone slices you and exposes it?

He Tian breaks the quiet.

“Tomorrow is something of a… family anniversary.” Then he frowns, sour. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s much of a _family_ occasion, but it’s important to me. Probably _only_ me. And I loathe going back to that fucking house, but that’s the only place where I can properly— properly celebrate it. Take my time and do it right.

“But having other people with me… it was easier. Less interaction with my brother and father, at least. And this morning, when I was gone, I was able to— to celebrate the anniversary early without having to come back on my own time and deal with everything else that comes with it. So, yesterday… everything was a good distraction. Good timing.”

For all that He Tian is, was, and ever will be, subtlety is not his forte. It doesn’t take much for Guan Shan to put together exactly what kind of ‘anniversary’ it is: the absence of the word ‘mother’ and the uncertain presence of the words ‘properly celebrate’ is all he needs. It’s all he gets.

Something pulls on Guan Shan’s chest at the thought, strung tight like a helpless marionette, and suddenly — remarkably — He Tian looks younger. Tired. Maybe even… uncertain.

It’s new territory. New food for thought. Guan Shan doesn’t know what to do with this image of He Tian. Doesn’t know how to react to it. Can’t remember if he’d wanted comfort or space when his own father was taken from him, thrown behind bars with nothing but a sour reputation to his name, but was never gone _for good_ like this.

Guan Shan has reached the door at the bottom of the stairwell, and he can’t decide whether to slam it shut or prop it open.

“And did you…” Guan Shan clears his throat. “Did you have enough time to celebrate?”

“Just enough.”

Guan Shan nods. Suddenly, he’s at a loss for words. He feels a bit nauseous. It’s only the beginning of free period; they’ve still so much time left. And yet he’s forced them into this gray zone — this uncertainty of where to go from here. Fundamentally, something’s shifted.

They’re both staring down at the grass, quiet, and then Guan Shan shifts against the tree.

“So everything that happened,” he says, trying and failing to keep a steady tone, “The shopping, the barbeque — everything was just because you didn’t want to go home alone? That's pretty damn convoluted if you ask me.”

He Tian huffs, amused. “Not exactly. I had nothing planned; no expectations. I just wanted to be with you.”

A beat.

Then, almost sly, He Tian adds: “And to answer your other question, yes, last night I slept—”

“I don’t,” Guan Shan interrupts, jaw tight, brow furrowed, “care.”

There’s a smile; Guan Shan sees it out of the corner of his eye, ears growing warm. It’s the same smile as the one in the store, in the taxi, during the barbeque — only this time Guan Shan gets to see it a lot less, because He Tian suddenly ducks out of sight, body sliding down and leaning over to rest his head on the slope of Guan Shan’s shoulder like it belongs there. His black hair falls against his neck, against his chest, and He Tian settles in, arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles.

Guan Shan can only go still.

“Still tired, though,” He Tian says through a yawn. Guan Shan can feel the bass of his voice against his skin; tremors that march down his arm. “Wasn’t a very comfortable set-up last night.”

_Then why did you sleep there?_

But he already knows the answer. Knows that, despite everything, even someone like He Tian needs a warm body sometimes. Knows that if this is all that He Tian wants from him, then maybe — _maybe_ — Guan Shan can give it to him. Maybe he just might be capable of it.

And despite it all, Guan Shan knows they’re not going to fall asleep. They’ve only twenty minutes left before classes start again, they haven’t eaten, and the staccato thrum of his pulse is anything but relaxing as He Tian presses up against him, steady. A selfish part of him hopes that He Tian’s heart is doing the same.

But he’ll never know. Yet it doesn’t stop him from wondering, and thinking, and risking. And after a moment’s hesitation, Guan Shan shimmies down the trunk until he’s in a more comfortable position, carefully supporting both their weights — and then after another moment’s hesitation, tilts his head, cheek pressed against He Tian’s hair whorl, nose tickled by strands that sway in the afternoon breeze.

And he can only imagine the look on He Tian’s face, but he tries not to. Instead he closes his eyes: listens to how He Tian exhales deep and slow, wonders if he was this warm and this quiet last night, lying inconspicuously at Guan Shan’s back. He reflects on what he would have done if he had woken up and found He Tian beside him last night. He speculates if his reaction would be any different if He Tian tried to pull the same stunt again in the future.

The thoughts are overwhelming, and Guan Shan opens his eyes to find something else to focus on. He doesn’t have to search for long.

Zheng Xi looks back at him, unblinking.

Those blue eyes flicker to Guan Shan, then He Tian, then Guan Shan again, catching his gaze. Neither say a word, nor break the ensuing staring contest.

A moment passes.

And then Zheng Xi goes back to his homework, poker-faced, tapping away at his calculator.

Guan Shan closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again until He Tian nudges him and murmurs it’s time for class.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the quiet presence of Zheng Xi. it's just so... powerful.
> 
> anyway, chapter 292 was truly a blessing and I couldn't help but pay homage to it in the form of this drabble. I hope you were entertained despite the many liberties I took with He Tian's mother, oops.
> 
> please consider leaving a kudos or comment if you enjoyed! it would truly mean the _world._ orrr, come talk to me on my [tumblr!](https://nightfayre.tumblr.com)
> 
> thank you SO much for reading, and have a great week!!


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